Another Day in the Country

It’s summertime!

By PAT WICK

Contributing writer

My cousin, Ed, brings me books to read when he’s in town. Every few months he shows up with a sack full. He’s read them all. Now it’s my turn.

“Do what you want with ’em when you’re finished,” he says as he sets them by the couch.

I like Ed. I like the fact that he knows me well enough to bring me books to read. I like most of the books he brings — not all of them, but enough of them. I was reading one of them this afternoon, “Electric Heat,” by Sanderson. I was reading this book at 5 in the afternoon, to be exact. Lying on my bed with a breeze coming in through the window, eating pieces of Bit-o-Honey candy while I read. Ah, what a luxury.

Read, as long as you like, close your eyes and snooze if you like. Who cares if it’s late afternoon? There’s absolutely no schedule to keep. It’s summertime and just another day in the country.

My cousin Joe called this morning. I didn’t answer the phone. I’d been up since 6:30 just watering and weeding and washing the sheets at the B&B, hanging them on the line to dry so they were crisp like freshly-ironed. It was 10:30 and I was ready to “sit a spell” as they say.

My sister Jessica came by and she sat down in the rocker on the front porch. I was in the swing, just swinging. It’s summertime.

“Nice to just sit for a change,” Jess said. “We don’t do enough of that.”

The phone rang.

“Isn’t that your phone?” she said.

I just grinned at her because I wasn’t going to answer it. The answering machine could do that job because it’s summertime.

She shook her head at me as the cell phone in her pocket rang.

“It’s probably your daughter,” she said, but it was Joe.

“What you doing?” he wanted to know.

“Sitting on the porch,” she said.

“We’re thinking about coming to Ramona,” he said.

Now? How about that. He retired a few months back and now he can just up and decide to come spend a day in the country, on the spur of the moment, on a Monday, during business hours.

That’s the nicest part about being “our age,” and in “our circumstances,” (which is unemployed and unencumbered in the summer). Poor financially but rich experientially, that’s what we are — and it’s even a misnomer to say I’m poor because I’m not. One may not have much money but so long as you are rich in thinking, extravagant in doing, wealthy in believing — you’re a millionaire.

I just want to say, right now, how grateful I’ve been, how unbelievably lucky I am to be enjoying summertime. At 6:30 in the morning where I live, there is so much stillness. Other than the cat meowing to be fed (which woke me at dawn) and the birds singing riotously in my yard, it’s quiet.

We had a guest at the B&B last weekend who said, “What’s with these birds in the country who sing so d*#@! loud, a person can’t sleep?”

We laughed. How lucky can you be?

The other day, the phone rang at the office. Some on-line, telemarketer, information-gatherer-type person.

“I want to ask for information about your business,” he said.

I decided to answer his questions because “who understands the internet and its mysterious ways of connecting people and places?”

He started with the important stuff: “Do you have a television in each room?”

“No, just in the living room and it doesn’t get good reception,” I said.

“Do you have Internet hook-ups in your facility?”

“No, but we have one across the street.”

“Do you have telephones in each room?”

“No,” I paused, “and most cell phone reception is pretty lousy.”

“Do you have valet parking?”

“No, but there’s plenty of room to park in the driveway.”

By this time I was laughing.

“Do you have elevators?”

“No, we have stairs, the steep, narrow, old-fashioned kind.”

“Do you have room service?”

“Like at night?” I wanted to know.

“Can they call you and order up food?”

Now, I was really laughing.

“No, they better not; but my sister makes the best pancakes in seven states for breakfast.”

“Is this a continental breakfast,” he asked.

“No, it’s a country breakfast with ham and eggs and …”

He fired the next question about interstate connections.

“On a gravel road,” I said, “we’re literally in the country.”

Probably, hard to understand why anyone would want to be here, unless you know about how much fun it is to spend summertime in the country.